In defence of its senior pastor, Paul Adefarasin, House on The Rock Church said the cleric’s stun gun is not illegal, urging the police to act professionally.

The church in a statement on Wednesday expressed concern over Mr Adefarasin’s detention by the police for hours without charge on Tuesday, berating the law enforcement agency for wrongly labelling Mr Adefarasin’s stun gun illegal.

The statement read, “Pastor Paul was detained for several hours and released without charge. During that time, an official police tweet mis-labelled his strobe-light stinger—also known as a stun gun—as “prohibited anti-riot equipment.” Leading Nigerian lawyers advise that this description is incorrect in law.’’

The church urged the police to act courteously and professionally, while “Pastor Paul continues to cooperate fully with the police investigation and is confident that, once the facts are reviewed, he will be exonerated of the allegation arising from the viral video.”

The House on The Rock’ statement followed police’s statement that they recovered an illegal stun gun from Mr Adefarasin after the viral video in which the cleric brandished the object to warn a car spotter to stop recording his car.

Mr Adefarasin had repeatedly denied owning a firearm after pointing the object at the car spotter who he described as an “aggressive content creator.“

The cleric was criticised by Nigerians on social media, who asked him to tell the public what he held or show what he held as evidence to support his denial.